Krista D Ball and The Strong Female Character Trope

My wife showed me a wonderful, though long, post by Krista D Ball about the trope of the Strong Female Character, how it goes wrong, and how that’s not necessarily what we need anymore. I agree with pretty much everything she wrote. I’ve never fully understood the obsession with making every single female character “strong”, at least not in the aggressive, masculine warrior sense that word usually represents. We need that kind of woman represented, certainly, but that should not be the only kind of target to aim for.

I also realized that I don’t think of Ori as an SFC. She’s just a person. Her particular configuration of naughty bits rarely comes into play, usually only when they get in the way or another character calls attention to them. What might seem like strength to others is usually just desperation or stubbornness (unless you count the fact that she’s a rock-climbing monkey). If other people think Ori’s “not like other girls”, it’s because she’s had an atypical life. She doesn’t think of it that way. She is who she is and that’s her normal. She’s doing the best she can to survive and chasing after what’s important to her in whatever manner she can figure out at the time. Like most of us, she’s making it up as she goes and doesn’t always choose the best approach for the situation. I’m more worried about being true to her than whether or not she’s “strong”.